Homeless man found dead had been arrested 92 times

KNOXVILLE — Police identified a 45-year-old homeless man from Texas who had been arrested nearly 100 times as the person found dead last week in a field off Dale Avenue.

Rodney Deon Trigg apparently died of medical problems, according to a news release from Knoxville Police Department spokesman Darrell DeBusk.

Trigg’s body was found about 5 p.m. July 16 near the intersection of Dale Avenue and Cowan Road, police said.

DeBusk said Trigg had been in the area for several years.

According to court records, Trigg had been arrested 92 times since 2006, including 73 counts of public intoxication.

Records show Trigg’s first arrest in Knox County occurred in February 2006. His last arrest, on a charge of public intoxication, occurred one week before his death.

In 2006, Trigg garnered his only charge not related to alcohol. He was charged once with possessing a pipe for smoking crack cocaine.

Trigg’s charges show he often had vodka, whiskey, beer or even mouthwash on him when arrested. He would be staggering along a street — Magnolia, Dale Avenue, Broadway, Ailor Avenue or Cumberland Avenue — or found unconscious on a sidewalk or in bushes in front of a business, records allege.

Once he was arrested when found urinating in a public parking garage. Other times he was arrested on charges of obstructing a roadway because he was panhandling with a sign along Interstate 275.

Police charged him nine times with criminal trespassing, usually for entering a Pilot store where he had been previously banned for eating food for which he could not pay.

In 2011, records show, Trigg was arrested on a charge of being a fugitive from justice because of a weapons violation brought in Texas. Records do not show the resolution of that arrest.